OH MY GOD SANFORD STOP TALKING

Mark Sanford, stop it now. You hear me? Stop it:

"This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story," Sanford said. "A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day."

During an emotional interview at his Statehouse office with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Sanford said Chapur is his soul mate but he's trying to fall back in love with his wife.

He said that during the encounters with other women he "let his guard down" with some physical contact but "didn't cross the sex line." He wouldn't go into detail.

Right, of course, he wouldn't go into detail. What do you call what he's been doing for the past week? Is John Ensign paying Sanford to stay in the spotlight, performing his weepy one-man reality show day after day ("Sanford and Sons"), to distract from Ensign's more tawdry sex offenses?

Regardless, much as I feel for anyone who stands in front of a camera and cries, Sanford lost me at "I love your tan lines." Not that anyone expects the Song of Solomon, especially not in email form. But isn't a little poetry in order if you're writing to your "soul mate"?

Not to mention the fact that he skipped off to do the dirty over Father's Day weekend. Maybe I'm just bitter because I was stuck in New York, seeing a mediocre movie, eating mediocre food, and dealing with mediocre melodrama. (We did go see the Avedon exhibit at the ICP, though, which was worth the $12.) But when you have four kids, I think an international tryst that weekend is in especially bad taste.

Ooh, neologism time! When one has been caught "hiking the Appalachian Trail," one suffers from "Trystesse" -- affair-induced melancholy. Eh? Eh?

ETA: Wonkette is similarly horrified, though it chooses to malign Anne of Green Gables for some reason. Leave Anne out of this, Wonkette. She had "bosom friends," but she never "sparked" with any of them, let alone "crossed the ultimate line." That we know of, anyway.

In the style of Whitman

Monday night I attended the birthday bash of an elderly, illustrious folk singer and lion of the left. While there, I met both an author I respect (I gave her my best wishes) and a younger folk singer who I've seen perform at least twice. I felt I should give her my best wishes too, since I was being all sociable.

"Folkie!" she cried, when I introduced myself and explained where I had seen her play. She threw her arm around me and steered me towards her crew of intimidating Brooklyn hipsters and queers. "Look, everyone! She's one of us!"

The crew eyed me. "Where do you live?" someone asked.

"Brooklyn," I answered.

The interrogator smiled as though to say that that much one could assume. "Where in Brooklyn?" she asked.

Barely Brooklyn. Brownstone Brooklyn. The Heights. There was nothing to it but to admit the truth, and I put it as baldly as possible: "Montague Street."

Their "Oh" was eloquent. Having proven myself utterly uncool, I managed to escape.

Later in the evening, however, as I returned from the bathroom, I ran straight into them. There they all were, piled carelessly upon each other in the hallway like the cool girls at a bat mitzvah. The folk singer appeared, still happy with wine, and clasped me to her again.

"Ester!" she said. "Where did go to college?"

"Swarthmore," said I.

"Swarthmore! That's wonderful! See, I told you she was one of us." She smiled broadly at her crew. "And what do you do, Swarthmore? You're not afflicted with music, I hope?"

"No, but I do write some," said I.

"Marvelous! What do you write?"

"Stories, poems ..."

"Write a poem for us now!" cried the folk singer. "About that wall, there."

I stared at the wall which was papered a bright, coppery orange. God help me, I thought. My head was empty. The crew was watching.

"Do it in the style of Whitman," someone suggested, giving me more rope.

"Ego, splashed against a wall," I said promptly.

They hooted with appreciation. "Mary Oliver!" called someone else.

"Birds against a burning sunset."

"Thoreau!"

"The heart beating lonely by reflecting waters."

"Anne Sexton!"

"The birth and the afterbirth together."

This time they screamed, and I had passed their test. With all due apologies to Whitman, Oliver, Thoreau, and Sexton, of course.

Free movies!

At Brooklyn Bridge Park:

July 9
Raising Arizona

July 16
The Maltese Falcon

July 23
Paper Moon

July 30
To Catch A Thief

August 6
The Return Of The Pink Panther

August 13
Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid

August 20
Catch Me If You Can

August 27
Edward Scissorhands


Hudson River Park

July 8 - Iron Man (PG13)

July 15 - Vicky Cristina Barcelona (PG13)

July 22 - The Dark Knight (PG13)

July 29 - Hancock (PG13)

August 5 - Tropic Thunder (R)

August 12 - Sex and the City: The Movie (R)

August 19 - Pineapple Express (R)


Bryant Park

June 15
The Sting (1973)
Robert Redford, Paul Newman and director George Roy Hill generate high-voltage chemistry in this light-hearted yet complex, overtly nostalgic look at 1930’s Chicago con men. Winner of seven Oscars and featuring the famous Scott Joplin piano rags.

June 22
Breaking Away (1979)
A teenage cyclist, Dennis Christopher, is besotted with all things Italian in a small Indiana college town. Things seem to be going nowhere for him and his townie buddies (Dennis Quaid, Jackie Earle Haley, and Daniel Stern), and he convinces them to take on the students at the Little 500 bicycle race. Flawlessly written by Steve Tesich and directed by Peter Yates.

June 29
Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
Nobody created pure Hollywood escapism productions better than Busby Berkeley, and this musical set the standard. Designed to transport Depression-enduring audiences, the plot involves attempts to put on a show, featuring Ginger Rogers, Ruby Keeler and Joan Blondell as the indefatigable Broadway show girls, and Dick Powell crooning the tunes.

July 6
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Al Pacino plays Sonny who needs money to pay for his boyfriend’s sex-change operation and decides to rob a bank to get it. Things go wrong and he’s soon bogged down in a long, drawn-out hostage situation. Sidney Lumet directed this gritty, darkly humorous drama set in Brooklyn on the hottest day of the year.

July 13
How Green Was My Valley (1941)
Winner of the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars (over “Citizen Kane”), this beautiful film is about a close-knit family in a Welsh mining village. John Ford directed the story, told through the eyes of a young Roddy McDowell, striking an incredible balance between moral seriousness and elegy.

July 20
Harold and Maude (1971)
Teenager Bud Cort and sexagenarian Ruth Gordon both like to go to funerals of people they don’t know, and meet to embark on one of cinema’s great relationships. Audacious and heartbreaking, Hal Ashby’s superb black comedy also features a perfect soundtrack by Cat Stevens.

July 27
The Defiant Ones (1958)
Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis are opposites unhappily shackled together after escaping from a chain-gang in the South. As they flee from the police, director Stanley Kramer showcases the humorous and moving situations featuring memorable characters the fugitives come across as they fight for their lives.

August 3
Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
Dustin Hoffman won an Oscar for his role as a father who will go to any length (even making French toast) to keep custody of his son. Meryl Streep is unmatched as his icy wife who walks out on him and returns to claim the boy, who is played by Oscar nominee Justin Henry. Robert Benton directs one of best acted films of the decade.

August 10
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
One of the most beloved Westerns of all time with one of the greatest scores of all time (by Elmer Bernstein). Seven mercenaries, including Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn, and Charles Bronson are hired to protect a Mexican village under siege by large group of bandits led by Eli Wallach.

August 17
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Steven Spielberg’s scifi blockbuster stars Richard Dreyfuss as a regular guy whose strange obsessions and journey turn fantastically clear at Devil’s Tower. Co-stars Teri Garr as his frustrated wife, and Francois Truffaut, the legendary French director, as a scientist seeking communication with extraterrestrials.

This one's for Ross

where have all the mix tapes gone
Originally uploaded by charrow.

and also Mr. Ben, who makes the best mix tapes, even if he doesn't have to make them for me anymore, since i am wooed and won.

Matchmaker, matchmaker ...

One of my coworkers mentioned today that when she took 19th century lit in college, her professor assigned every member of the class a fictional spouse from that era. She couldn't remember who she was given but she wanted Pierre from War and Peace. I thought Levin from Anna Karenina would be a good pick, if you don't mind Russians, and she countered with Pip, at which I could only scoff, "You can't pick anyone from Dickens. He had no sense of the romantic at all. Did anyone get Darcy?"

"Funny enough, no," she said. "Maybe he thought it might cause too much jealousy."

Another coworker came into the room and I asked him who he would choose. "Aw," he said, in the voice of Eeyore. "It doesn't matter. I'd probably end up with Emma Bovary."

I tried to buck him up, offering him clever heroines and feisty social climbers and crazy pyromaniacs locked up in attics, but he would have none of it. "I really didn't do too much reading, actually," he said. "All those girl books."

We expanded the category to include all literature, at which point he perked up. "Oh, Harriet the Spy's mom. Or Harriet -- when she's grown up. Is that okay?" We conferred and decided to allow it, because it was okay for Lewis Carroll, and anyway, who are we to judge?

Maybe a more interesting question is the age-old one: Fuck one, marry one, throw one off a cliff: Any three characters in 19th century literature. For me, that'd be: 1) Huck Finn; 2) Nikolai Levin; 3) Raskolnikov. Unless I could have Darcy, of course. If Darcy's in the picture, all bets are off.


"I like the hot woman in Brothers Karamazov," contributes Mr. Ben. "The town harlot. ... Are you writing that down? Dammit!"

I <3 NYC

At 3:15, I was told, my new office would adjourn to a nearby bowling alley, where we would commemorate the imminent departure of a coworker. At 3:45, the first wave of us actually made it out and walked fifteen blocks in the sunshine to the posh lanes hidden on the second floor of Port Authority.

By 6:15, we had played five games, drunk a tower of beer, chomped through several suprisingly-good pizzas, completed the Times crossword puzzle, dropped two balls, broken several nails, and had a rollicking good bonding experience. I was particularly satisfied, having improved: I went from losing the first game, to coming in second, to, finally, the third time around, coming in first.

THAT'S RIGHT BABY. I went from zero to hero, from Sarah Palin to Stephen Colbert, in the course of one short afternoon. And for my perserverance I now have "bowler's wrist." This is an affliction that may be specific to Jews. It's unclear.

This weekend, after some agonizing, I decided to ditch my five year reunion. Instead I did Only In New York things: lounged on Governor's Island with the Jazz Age partiers; followed brunch at Dizzy's with a long stroll through Park Slope; poked about in a little, overpriced boutique staffed by an extravagantly fey man in a Dolce and Gabana bandanna, etc.

Unfortunately skipping out on Swat did mean that I went the entire weekend without asking any of the questions I had prepared, like:

• "So, what's your thesis about?"
  
• "How many blind Zambian orphan girls would you say your organization has saved?"
  
• "What's it like to study with Judith Butler?"
  
• "Will you please tell me more about making tofu by hand?"
  
• "Your halo is so great -- where did you get it?"

"Hold on tight, Spidermonkey!": a meditation on 'Twilight'

Gone are the days of Anne Rice. She has found her lord and savior, and she has turned her back on the vampires she once tended to so lovingly.

Now, I never begrudge anyone a good rebirth (or two, in the case of Robert Zimmerman). But Anne Rice left behind her a void that lesser folks have struggled -- and failed -- to fill. True Blood is said to be campy and silly; everyone shudders at the idea of a new Buffy movie; and then, of course, there's Twilight, the international sensation.

The four books of the saga have twee names and covers that could have been designed by the staff at Hot Topic. That's more or less all I know about them, having never opened one; and if the writing is as over-ripe as the movie, that's all I ever need to know.

Lord, this movie. Have uncorseted bosoms ever heaved so dramatically? Have two sets of eyes ever stared so beseechingly into each other? Have vampires ever seemed so ridiculous? And I do mean ridiculous. The "good" vampires -- a set of clean-cut, wealthy, thoroughly creepy Aryans in pancake makeup -- have to stay hidden from view on sunny days. Why? Because they turn into David Bowie. Whereas poor Kirsten Dunst and her nurse were reduced to ash in seconds in Interview with the Vampire, and their equivalent bursts into flames in Let the Right One In, in Twilight the undead merely sparkle.

Other rules broken by these "good" vampires: they have reflections; they seem unfazed by garlic; and they can enter new spaces without being invited. What is the point, I ask you, of well-understood genre conventions if they are overthrown without so much as an explanation?

There are of course "bad" vampires, a crew of multi-culti, gender-nonspecific hippies who escaped from the recent Shakespeare in the Park production of Hair. These vampires seem quite sexual, whereas the others aren't; they also attack humans, while the superior creatures restrict themselves to animals (and then have the gall to call themselves vegetarian). It's the culture wars of the 60s all over again.

Here is the crux of the books' and the movie's appeal, as I understand it: though Bella and Edward are so into each other and so horny that their sexual tension made me need to pause and get some air, they cannot consummate their passion. It's all titillation and no release, presumably because if Edward were to physically love Bella, he would have to kill her. (Why? Who knows? He may be a vampire but he's also a teenage boy and they are NOT TO BE TRUSTED.) Still, as a viewer I felt like echoing Jeneane Garofolo in Reality Bites after she has suffered through the thousandth Winona Ryder-Ethan Hawke bantering session: "Just do it and get it over with already!"

The alternatives offered by the movie -- lying down in a meadow, holding hands, tearing another vampire to pieces and burning his body in a ballet studio -- are unintentionally hilarious, as is most of the dialogue ("About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him, and I didn't know how dominant that part might be, that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.").

For all that, it was the Indians-as-werewolves that were the tipping point.

Bias watch: Day 2

Dana Milbank makes an ass of himself in today's Post describing the woman who may be America's Next Top Jurist:

In selecting Sotomayor, Obama opted for biography over brain. As a legal mind, Sotomayor is described in portraits as competent, but no Louis Brandeis. Nor is Sotomayor, often described as an abrasive jurist, likely to be the next Earl Warren. But her bio is quite a hit. In Spanish, her surname can be translated as "big thicket" -- and that's just where Republicans could find themselves if they oppose this up-from-poverty Latina.

Who says she's not brainy? Well, no one that Milbank can name, but why let fact intrude on this lovely fictional narrative. Who describes her as abrasive? Duh, PEOPLE. You know, smart people, with titles and experience and everything. Just trust me on this, says Milbank. As I'm sure many folks will.

Let's make a song, shall we? Then we can sing it in response to anyone who claims that this brilliant, accomplished woman is merely Ghetto Barbie (comes with a briefcase!).

The song will begin:

Princeton U! Yale Law!
ADA for Morganthau!
Princeton U! Yale Law!
ADA for Morganthau!

Okay, that's more of a chant. No one ever accused me of being Bob Dylan. (Bob Dylans out there: help?) I am accusing Milbank of willful deceit, however, unless he can back up his demeaning, offhand assertions that there is nothing to Sonia but dark skin and a good bio. God, I hate this nonsense.

"... ladies."

A Cambridge student athlete has made it to the finals in the Miss East Anglia competition, precursor to the Miss England pageant. Is this more or less shocking than a Hispanic woman who grew up in the projects getting a Supreme Court nomination? Check out the picture below and weigh in.



This is a toughie. Let's hear comments from the peanut gallery:

"Slim women - not anorexic - look better than fat blobby women. Get over it. If that weren't true, people wouldn't prefer them, would they?"

An excellent point, since "people" do objectively "prefer" the slim over the blobby, and we know this from detailed examinations of everything since the dawn of time. Thank you, John Stern from London.

What about Sonia Sotomayor, a Puerto Rican from the Bronx: could she really hold her own on America's highest bench? Educationally, she has scaled some very high ivy walls, graduating from

Princeton University, summa cum laude, in 1976, where she won the Pyne Prize, the highest general award given to Princeton undergraduates.[7] Sotomayor obtained her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1979, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal.

Still, surely there's a more qualified white man in the wings who is being overlooked simply for the sake of color? Again, speak, O peanut gallery!:

"This country has taken a dangerous shift away from the basic tenets of our Constitution , and instead of seizing the opportunity to right that ship, we get another poor choice designed to placate the masses.

Randy Barnett would have been a much better choice.

Unfortunately, being white and male,he didn’t have much of a chance from the start."

SO TRUE, SgNews. Btw, who is Randy Barnett?

the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Law at Boston University, where he served as the faculty adviser for the Federalist Society. He joined the faculty of Georgetown University Law Center in 2006. Barnett is a Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute and the Goldwater Institute. ... In 2009, he drafted the Bill of Federalism, 10 proposed amendments to the US Constitution designed to limit federal power and strengthen individual rights.

In other words, he's the Ron Paul candidate for the bench! I can't believe Obama didn't pick him. Of course, it wasn't his Libertarian views, his involvement with the Federalist Society, Cato Institute, or Goldwater Institute that held him back; it was his sex and his race, which as we all know are a serious barrier to advancement in America.

For more, because there is always more, see here and here.

Honestly, I am as shallow, judgmental, and quick to stereotype as anyone else who has grown up in this flawed society, and both of these women strike me as eminently qualified for their positions. I wish them the best. With all this criticism from all sides, though, is it any wonder women say they are less happy than they used to be? (Also, did anyone running that study consider that perhaps women feel allowed to be more honest these days?)

I am job (rather than Job)

I still don't know what I'm doing for the rest of my life, but I do know what I'll be doing starting in June. I will be paid money to work with artsy, lefty Jewish intellectuals in a non-profit on the top floor of a midtown office building.

~

Chris: How did I know it would be Jewish or Feminist?
Me: Well, all the gay male snarky jobs were taken.

~

For the third time in five years, I will begin a job on 6/15. Eerie, huh? The vernal equinox loves me like Barney, like Jesus, like a dog that's just been fed. The autumnal equinox is another story, of course. An R-rated horror story like Saw IV: The Sawiest Yet, So Sawy You Won't Have Any Fingers Left By The Time We're Done With You. Somehow I have offended the autumnal equinox and I have to figure out a way to make amends. Is it because I make fun of Christmas?

This job gives me all the Jewish holidays off!

~

Adam: So nice for you to have a chance to get in touch with your jewish heritage.

~

Meanwhile I will enjoy my last precious and increasingly warm hours of freedom, knowing, to my great relief, that there is some stability around the corner.

Klutziness

Can stress make you clumsier? In the last couple days, I've dropped things, stumbled, spilled water on a friend, cut myself in a very sensitive region, and nearly gotten hit by a car. The worst incident came at the end of my second interview yesterday. I bid farewell to the nice crowd of people who had been quizzing me, then strode gracefully through the lobby and straight into a glass door.

"Oh!" gasped the three women nearby. "Are you okay?"

I was, luckily. Nothing was broken: not my nose, not the glass. I did however leave a perfect kiss on the door, as though I'd planted it there on purpose.

In general I am not a klutz, because I am neurotic about not hurting myself. Even when I kid, I just sort of knew: Do this, and you could die; and as you don't want to die ere you become a famous writer, leave ice skating / roller coasters / black diamond slopes to the masses of future unknowns (or future deads). The closest I've come to a broken anything is when I twisted my ankle before my debut as Tzeitel in my 7th grade production of Fiddler on the Roof.

My mom took me to the ER, where a nervous young doctor fussed over me for a while and then finally took an x-ray. Several minutes later, he tracked me down in the waiting room and said, "I'm sorry, I messed up. Can we try again?"

The second time was also a flop, and he looked more pale as he asked for a third go-round. But when he came out the last time, he looked like he had just seen the Ghost of Christmas Future and it had told him his fate was to end up a dentist. He gestured for me to follow him to a corner a discreet distance from everyone else.

"You're not pregnant, are you?" he asked the thirteen-year-old me.

"Um, no," I said, wondering what the hell the x-ray had shown.

"Phew!" he said, the color flooding back to his cheeks. "Because we would have killed the baby."

Speaking of both clumsiness and inept professionals, the Daily News reports that an Arkansas state senator named Hedren has made an art of putting his foot in his mouth. First he called Chuck Shumer "that Jew." Now he's trying to make things right in the most hilarious way possible:

Defending himself again to the Arkansas News, Hendren went further, saying he didn't know why the words "that Jew" came out of his mouth. He added that there is a Jewish person he admires — Jesus. He's also partial to Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman.

Estates

I've been in DC for a while, being with and, to the extent possible, taking care of my father. He was hospitalized with pneumonia and sepsis last week, which, on top of the maybe-inoperable pancreatic cancer, seems like overkill. So to speak. He was released and sent home finally but remained very weak.

Yesterday, he called for me from his favorite chair and when I went in, he didn't need me to fix the TV or get him another Vitamin Water. He wanted to talk about his estate.

The only thing worse than thinking about death is thinking about the intersection of death and money.

Pots, books, jewelry, art. What did I want? What are things worth? How should they be sold? I started welling up almost immediately so he couldn't really look at me while he gave instructions.

"I'm sorry to make you sad," he said.

"I'm not crying," I retorted. "I've got heavenly dust in my eyes."

On Sunday, my mom heard from another woman in the building that there was a garage sale of sorts going on downstairs. She and I and Mr. Ben, who had come down for the weekend, all trooped to the fifth floor, where we found a tall, tired man selling his mother's things. "She was very smart," he told anyone who asked, while they picked up pillows or kitchenware. "PhD in Chemistry. Fluent in French."

The neighbors said, "She didn't suffer, God forbid?"

He said, "No. No, she didn't suffer."

I discovered I loved her jewelry. None of it was valuable, but it was eye-catching and funky. The rings fit me perfectly. Looking around, I could almost conjure up an image of this little Egyptian doctor, puttering around an apartment filled with rugs and tablecloths, books and colorful dishes. All three of us left with our arms full and our hearts overflowing for a man who had to spend Mother's Day watching strangers bear his mother's life away.

My father has always been morbid, so it is hard to know whether when he says he has "months" he can be trusted. The word blasted through me regardless. There is space between the words "sick" and "dying," important space, space I want to curl up in for the next decade at least. With a puppy, if I can arrange it, and maybe a child. The idea of losing a parent makes me irrational. I want the book published, a beautiful baby born, a bank account full of money to display, all to say, See? You don't need to worry. Everything's fine. Everything's fine. You've given me all I need already.

Instead of sleeping last night, I re-read Little Women and cried so hard this morning I had a nosebleed. But I'm okay. I'm trying to be okay. Please don't ask me how my father is.

Things Anemia Has Driven Me To

1) Toasted Oatmeal Flakes from Trader Joe's. Man they're good! I gave them up when Mr. Ben and I moved to Park Slope; we joined the Co-op, which is the closest I'll ever get to being part of Skull & Bones, and I started buying Puffins instead.

Puffins, though lovely, have no iron, while TOF are whoa-fortified. And delicious.

2) Avoiding sharp objects.

3) Femme pride. There's something dainty and sweet about being anemic, like having consumption. Maybe it'll make me sexier!

The doctor was testing me for something else entirely, but I was in exemplary shape except for being low on the red blood cells. This struck me as funny, as though he had said, "The government is doing great, except that the President has just been shot." I mean, aren't red blood cells rather the whole point? Aren't they what blood is made of? I don't remember too much from what I learned in high schools, except words like Hemoglobin and Platelets, but I'm pretty sure ...

Anyway, if I'm wrong, please don't correct me. I may be too delicate to handle it.

"i just don't dig on swine"

This SiF hysteria was getting out of hand (although it did produce this touching tribute to school nurses). Thank goodness Arlen Specter stepped out to shift media focus onto something else. My newsfeed lit up with love for Arlen moments after his announcement, and Twitter's been abuzz all day.

It seems a bit to me like a deathbed conversion. Did he suddenly realize it must have taken a blue God to put a black man in the White House? Did he want to be in good graces with that deity when his time comes? Or is he just crushing hard on Michelle, like the rest of us?

Regardless, he has my blessing. Go with guilt, Arlen! If Charlotte can be a Jew, you can be a Democrat. Don't let those spurned, angry wingnuts get you down.

I don't have the Sif; I do, however, a pretty mean cold that's left me with a voice like Bea Arthur, and two interviews over the next two days. Hopefully my prospective employers have a soft spot for the Golden Girls. Hopefully they will also view my coming in this condition as a show of dedication rather than obliviousness. Hm. Perhaps I shouldn't shake hands?

quotes quiz!

Here's a quiz that I saw on the Face and I thought it would be more fun to do it here. Below are 15 quotes from 15 of my favorite movies, and you try to guess which movie each comes from. NO GOOGLING and no using IMDB.

Whoever can guess the most wins a prize of my own devising.

1. "Remember, honey, on your wedding night, it's all right to say 'yes.'" Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

2. "I've been thinking with my gut since I was fourteen years old, and I've come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains." High Fidelity

3. "What ain't no country I've ever heard of. They speak English in What?" Pulp Fiction

4. "Street slang is an increasingly valid form of expression. Most of the feminine pronouns do have mocking, but not necessarily misogynistic undertones." Clueless

5. "He owns the police!" Chinatown

6. "Is that your blood?" "Some of it, yeah." Fight Club

7. "2,000 years of glorious history from Moses to Sandy Koufax -- you're damn right I'm living in the past!" Big Lebowski

8. "Who knows where thoughts come from? They just appear." Empire Records

9. "You sure have a way with people." "Well, they're my species!" Harold & Maude

10. "If you hold back anything, I'll kill ya. If you bend the truth or I think you're bending the truth, I'll kill ya. If you forget anything, I'll kill ya. In fact, you're gonna have to work very hard to stay alive." Lock, Stock, & Two Smoking Barrels

11. "In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love -- they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." The Third Man

12. "Is butter a carb?" "Yes." Mean Girls

13. "A faceless man rips off your clothes, and that's the sex fantasy you've been having since you were twelve?" "Well, sometimes I vary it a little." "Which part?" "What I'm wearing." WHMS

14. "Technically speaking, the operation is brain damage, but it's on a par with a night of heavy drinking. Nothing you'll miss." ESoTSM

15. "Wallace Beery. Wrestling picture. What do you need, a roadmap?" Barton Fink

BTW, Sorry for that last post, guys. It just kind of slipped out. Maybe it was the product of one of those "runners highs" I've heard so much about.

a swelling heart

I love this illustrated essay from the NYT: "May It Please the Court."

I love the power of context to say, sometimes, what words can't:



I love having neighbors, especially ones with a roofdeck, thanks to which I have my very first suntan of the season.

I love that I live with someone who loves me more than I love me, and gives me something to strive for everyday. Also he hangs pictures. Welcome, Marilyn, to Montague Street!

I love that it's in the 80s and beautiful today, that our windows are flung open and I'm wearing a bright blue dress, that I have a new book from the library and what feels like all the time and the all the luck in the world.

It's always midnight on Montague Street

I live in the Land of the Broken Clock, under the jurisdiction of the Broken Clock, and what's supremely funny about this is that it's a fancy one-year-old "radio controlled" La Crosse we were given as a wedding present. We tried changing the batteries, which didn't work, and now it serves as a constant reminder of how imperfect even high technology can be.

Speaking of imperfection, Robin Givhan of the Washington Post argues that Susan Boyle should get a makeover. Susan Boyle, the middle-aged singing phenom who has succeeded without altering her image one jot, should, now that she's made it, stop being so damn frumpy:

Boyle has charmed millions, in part, because she comes across as unpretentious and pleasant. But she's hardly Everywoman. She's an odd duck, a bit of a loner. She's a character. And she's living out a fairy tale.

Transformation is always part of a good story. Cinderella didn't go to the ball in hand-me-downs. She went looking her best in a glorious gown and won the heart of the prince. The ugly duckling becomes a swan.

The tale of Susan Boyle will not be complete until the shy spinster blossoms. Those who have been entranced by her story so far should let Boyle's fairy godmother finish her work.

In other words, why should Boyle change? Because the narrative demands it! In fact, why stop at clothes and hair and shoes? This "shy spinster" needs a prince, too. I for one will not rest until Susan Boyle gets boinked good and proper.

"Spinster," indeed. Jesus. What world are we living in? Maybe she's gay, Robin. Maybe she's not interested in sex. Who cares? Her personal life is her business, and she doesn't need the Standard Gift Basket of Our Approval ("Comes with lipstick, a Maserati, and arm candy for the red carpet!")

For the record, I'm not sure what Susan Boyle looks like or sounds like. I haven't watched the YouTube video (should I?) But I also don't care. Let the woman enjoy her moment in the spotlight. Her story doesn't have to be a fairy tale to be interesting, and even if this is her own personal fairy tale it doesn't have to conform to the Disney model.

Whither Thou Goest, I Will Go

THE FACTS:

• I am married.
  
• My husband wants to be a law clerk one level up in a District Court
  
• District Court clerkships are incredibly hard to get, especially in popular locales such as Washington, DC, New York, NY, and San Francisco, CA, and their environs
  
• I have no interest in leaving Brooklyn
  
• But my husband has a dream

THE DISCUSSION:
ME: How about when we're 30? I thought we agreed that when I'm 30, you are allowed to take me from New York.
HIM: 30 is a long time from now. I would really love to apply for next year.
ME: Next year I will still be less than 30.
HIM: But now is when we are still young, still mobile, still flexible ...
ME: 30.

THE NEGOTIATION:
HIM: How about we look at where I could go and you could say if one place or another would be more enticing to you? After all, it would only be for a year.
ME: Okay. Shoot.
HIM: Bridgeport, CT.
ME: My parents did not send me to Jewish Day School for 13 years so that I could wind up in Connecticut!
HIM: But I have roots there --
ME: Anyway it's too cold. Next, please.

HIM: Concord, NH.
ME: Too cold.
HIM: Burlington, VT.
ME: Too cold.
HIM: New Haven, CT.
ME: Too cold.
HIM: Come on! We're not talking about Alaska.
ME: Too cold.
HIM: Providence, RI.
ME: Maybe.
HIM: Maybe?
ME: Maybe. But probably too cold.

HIM: Okay, how about the South?
ME: Where are the clerkships there?
HIM: Nashville, TN.
ME: Too Christian. I've heard horror stories.
HIM: Shreveport, LA.
ME: The last Confederate command to surrender! Plus there's a whole Wikipedia section labeled "Churches."
HIM: Roanoke, VA.
ME: Are you crazy? People disappeared in Roanoke. It could have been aliens. They could come back. Plus there's a whole Wikipedia section labeled "Crime" with a subsection on "Gangs."
HIM: Yeah, but it's gone from 2nd worst city in VA to 5th.
ME: Next, please.

THE COMPROMISE
ME: How about you wait a year to apply?
HIM: That's fair. And in return, you'll be fine with my applying to ...
ME: Hawaii; San Juan; Columbia, SC; New Bern, NC; the Virgin Islands; Arlington, VA; Portland, OR; Jerusalem; and the Hague.
HIM: And maybe Memphis and New Orleans.
ME: Yes.
HIM: Thank you.

Green beans at the seder

As a hostess, my mother is conscientious, even, you might say, fastidious. Mr. Ben learned this his very first Passover with us back in 2001, an experience so scarring it is no surprise it took him six years to propose. His reaction could probably be summed up by a friend at this Passover who leaned over to me and remarked, "There are so many rules!" Uh, yeah. But what would Judaism be without rules?*

I don't mind rules. I'm used to them. Don't stack the china. Don't mix patterns. Don't fetch something out of the kitchen yourself. Don't eat dairy with the meat meal (even if you're a vegetarian). Don't break anything. My mother has her own version of Leviticus and even though it isn't written down, she thinks the rules are self-evident and she doesn't quite understand why some people don't immediately get it.

She also puts on a beautiful Seder.

This year however she made one mistake. Green beans. That's right, friends. Green beans are not technically kosher for Passover and she served them at BOTH SEDERS. Oh the shame.

Green beans fall under a category of food called "kitniyot," which are permitted for Sephardic Jews, i.e., those from Spain and the Arab world, and not for Ashenazic Jews, i.e., most of us. This is because Jews in Spain & the Arab world had more freedom under Islam than Jews in Europe did under various tight-ass Popes and Czars. So while Sephardic Jews got to throw parties, write poetry, and generally have a good time in good weather, Ashkenazic Jews were stuck in dour shtetls, looking over their shoulders for Cossacks, and inventing new laws to make life even more difficult for themselves.

Well, I reject this tradition of suffering for the sake of suffering. Sure, much of my lineage is based in Lithuania and the Pale of Settlement (Russia/Poland, depending on the year). But my father's family originally hailed from Turkey. The fun-loving Jews! Those are my real spiritual ancestors, and they eat rice on Passover; rice, yes, and green beans too, and soybeans, and corn. There is no end to their wild ways.

My 96-year-old maternal grandmother seems to have absorbed some of this hedonism, even though she is descended from those drab, staid Eastern Europeans. When my brother and I were arguing back and forth about whether soybeans were permissible to eat, my grandmother interrupted us. "Do you know what I ate today?" she said. "A piece of bread."

Now that left us speechless in awe.

Happy Passover everyone! Happier still: only a few days left.

----
*Christianity.

In gay news

When you're a teenager, my god, is there any issue more intense than sexuality? Love, acceptance, rebellion, identity, are you going to be an insider or an outsider, are you going to disappoint your parents ...

For me, it wasn't as simple as, Was I attracted to boys? Of course I was attracted to boys (the attractive ones, anyway, like Jonathan Brandis, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jared Leto).



I was also afraid of most of them, which complicated the matter, and starting about midway through eighth grade they weren't particularly interested in me, which didn't help either. At the same time as the boys were ignoring me, I became catnip to lesbians.

Fending off anyone's advances is difficult for me, and it was even harder when I was so desperate for physical affirmation and affection. But sleepover after sleepover, I laughed off the awkwardness or said things like, "Wouldn't you be more comfortable in your bed?" In some ways, it would have been so much easier to just be like, Yes, you're right: I wear glasses and I don't wear make up, ergo, I am a dyke.

When I fell in love with a boy who loved me back my freshman year of college, I was almost as relieved as my mother. (Oh, she had her suspicions.) The longer we stayed together, the more the issue faded and I found perfect middle ground for myself. Instead of being queer, I surrounded myself with queer people. They tended to have the right politics and not care that I didn't wear make up, and the gay boys didn't scare me at all. Plus, gays and Jewish ladies are a natural constituency: we have Sondheim and Streisand in common! Not to mention intellectual snobbery.

Today I had lunch with two old friends: my oldest-and-bestest, who's now an illustrator living in a "Boston marriage" in Park Slope (or is that redundant?); and the boy who was my first kiss and seven years later my senior prom date, who's now a gay Williamsburg hipster of the first order. Both of these individuals got way more action with the opposite sex in high school than I did, in case we need a reminder of how little what we do or don't do in high school means.

I told them excitedly about today's Midwestern bombshell ("Is this Heaven?" "No, it's Iowa"). Neither cared nearly as much as I did.

There should be a phrase that applies to this situation -- like "the zeal of the convert" but specifically meaning "the zeal of the near-miss." It's akin to survivor's guilt. Straight guilt? I can't be the only one who feels it.

Anyway, well done, corn-producing, Obama-nominating state! You get two thousand gold stars in my book.